RKanimalkingdom

“The customs officers will never let us enter America carrying all her
powders. I haven’t been sleeping at night thinking of all that could happen. And
your mother blithely keeps packing away.”
Mom was equally irritable on the other line. “What can these customs people
do?” she asked. “If they ask what it is, I will tell them that I am carrying Indian
medicines.”
“Ha!” said Dad. “Indian medicines indeed. They will throw everything into
the trash can.”
“Let them throw,” Mom said. “It will reduce my load. Why can’t you think of
your poor daughter instead of those prying customs officers?”
“What if those prying customs officers jail us indefinitely when we transit
through London? What if they deport us back to India? What if they think we’re
terrorists because of my moustache?”
My parents fought all the way across the Atlantic and arrived without any of
the powders, pickles, papads, and sweets. The customs people at Kennedy
Airport had tossed them all”
― Shoba Narayan, Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes

“very old people in Russia have a
stamp upon them that I hope I can learn and never lose, a matter-of-fact
resilience and sense of their place upon the earth that is very sturdy and
reassuring”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“For Black women as well as Black men, it is axiomatic that if we do not define
ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others — for their use and to our
detriment”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“Indians expect to be
force-fed when they visit other homes, and they relish the attention. In fact,
Indians of my grandmother’s generation think it rude and walk away in a huff if
the host doesn’t entreat them to eat, eat, and eat some more.”
― Shoba Narayan, Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes